28th Feb '25

Welcome back to a new term. We hope that you enjoyed the holidays! This week the children have quickly settled back into their routines at school. We started the week of by writing about what we did in our holidays. We followed this by starting our next literacy text, "Meerkat Mail" by Emily Gravett. This is a story about Sunny, a meerkat, who goes visiting different family members. From each place he writes a postcard home. The children are using this as a basis for their next literacy block. They will be writing a re-count of their visit to The West Berkshire Museum next week.

We have started our next topic in maths which is multiplication and division. This week we have been counting in twos and fives. The children enjoyed using the unifix to help them with this. When we counted in twos, we also talked about whispering number one and saying number two loudly. We then said number three quietly and number four loudly. We then said all our loud numbers - two, four, six, eight etc. Year two had a go at counting backwards as well. Have a go counting in twos, fives and tens at home. 

In design and technology we have started thinking about how to make a picture move. We looked at a book that used sliders to make the pictures move. It was set on a farm. The children then created their own moving picture using a slider. First they created their background based on a farm. They then made their animal and put it on a slider so that they could move their animal from side to side across their background. The children were very creative and had some lovely ideas!

In P.E. we are continuing with our Monday dance lessons. This week we started a new dance about toys. The children had to pretend to be toy robots, toy planes and toy tambourines. They did some super actions!

We'd survived the first week back after half term and the sun was shining, what more could we ask for! There was even a hint of warmth in the sunshine and we were ready to begin some new topics together as we started one of our favourite days of the week, of course it had to be Friday!

We of course warmed up with Danny go, with this week seeing not just one sensory movement break but TWO, one in the morning and one after lunch, with one of them new and involving a train dance which I've got to say was lots of fun! The second involved a dash through the supermarket and reminded me of my own trips to the supermarket! Kingfishers simply love our Danny go movement breaks so why not have a go at them at home!

As our day continued we could barely contain our excitement, all day everything from soft paws to dinosaurs, jumping frog to sonic had been attempting to make their way out of our bags and into the corridors of the school! Could you imagine, our favourite toys trying to escape all by themselves, was true magic taking place in our school today?  

LUCKILY the time had come! As we settled into the afternoon we were starting our new History topic, 'The History of Toys!' and to introduce the topic we began discussing our favourite toys, we had everything from unicorns to Godzilla, snow rabbits to precious stamp collections, the list was endless or should I saw the box of toys were endless! 

Kingfishers loved drawing their toy and then telling me all it, including;

• Material
• Purpose
• Why it is their favourite?
• Is it fragile?
• Is it old or new?

   "My favourite toy is Sonic because it is nice.

   It is made of material and I like to cuddle it."

Cricket

This term in MNR we are learning how to play cricket and on Friday Mr Richardson warmed us up by teaching us how to develop our focusing skills which would later help us when we were fielding! We worked in pairs and had to list to the instructions that Mr Richardson gave us, from hands on head to turn around, take 2 steps back to hands on knees and then suddenly Mr Richardson would say 'Get the ball' and whoever got the ball first off the cone would win!

As we moved into learning how to play cricket, Mr Richardson taught us the basic rules of the game! Teaching us what to do if we were batting the ball and what to do if we were the fielders. 

It was quite tricky to hit the ball, remembering to hit it with the flat side of the bat and then we had to remember to keep running until the fielders got the ball back to the cone! How many times do you think we could run back to the cone?

The rest of the red team waited patiently in the coned area to make sure they didn't get hit by the ball whilst the blue team, the fielders stood behind the blue cones until the ball was hit. Then they were off! 

Just look at us go!

Important PE reminder

Could we please ask that all children continue to bring in a second pair of shoes to wear for PE on a Friday as it is still very muddy on the field at this time of the year! As we are now doing Cricket and no longer Rugby, Mr Richardson has also asked that children wear trainers so please could you please ensure that your child is not wearing shoes with studs from next week. It is also worthwhile putting in a change of trousers as children are often quite muddy after lunchtime if they have been on the field and it also helps if children have a spare pair of trousers/socks in school anyway- PE joggers are fine. 

Thank you!

We were almost there but we couldn't possibly end the day without our show and tell! It had felt like forever since we had done a show and tell so this week felt particularly special and it was lovely that our 3 children shared such special items with us.....

First up we had an item all the way from Hong Kong! It had been bought by a Dad who had travelled to see his friends and had seen these hanging all around the streets. Our Kingfishers knew that during Chinese New Year these would have had a light in them and been hung up and also enjoyed telling us that it was decorated with Chinese Writing- How beautiful! Mrs Brown also taught us that the reason it was red was because in China they believe red to bring good luck!

What I love about Show and Tell is that we never see the same item and next up we had 2 Oyster Shells and an actual Pearl! We were told that these had come from Jersey when our Kingfisher had gone on holiday there, she thinks when the weather was a bit colder so perhaps not during the Summer holidays and she remembers the Oysters coming from the beach but the pearl coming from a shop. 

Just look at how beautiful the pearl is........

To end our day together we had one final Show and Tell and this one was definitely a special one! Our Kingfisher had a very special photo to share with us....."It's my Mummy's baby, she's having a baby girl and it's going to sleep in my bedroom!" We were delighted to share in this lovely moment with our Kingfisher who was so proud to show this scan to us, she could even point to where the babies head was and she shared how happy she was that she is going to be a big sister after her birthday which is in May! Wow what a moment!

What a wonderful way to end our week together! After such a fantastic first week back we can't wait to see what this term brings. Don't forget we have our trip to the West Berkshire Museum on Monday to explore the History of Toys on Monday, how exciting and what a fantastic way to start the week!

Parents- If you have any toys from the past at home that you would be willing to share with us then we would love to create a classroom museum on Friday 14th March! If you could email me to let me know if your happy to take part in our museum and I will let you know how to get involved! lbrown@csf.w-berks.sch.uk

Have a great weekend!